Welcome to my blog. Astronomy is a fantastic hobby. I started off with just a passing interest, but now it's never far from my mind. My earliest posts were all about observations, but now, I write about all sorts of astronomy related topics. Please feel free to comment, or subscribe to receive an email when I add a new post. Enjoy, and thanks for reading.

Monday, 24 November 2014

It was observing Jim, and just as we know it!

Good evening!

To kick off this posting, worthy of mention at this early
stage is that last night was the first proper frosty night of this Autumn so
far. For some time now, I have been trying
to arrange an observing session with my friend Jim but have always been beaten
back by weather and availability.
However, on Saturday, the forecast for Sunday evening was looking very
good. I fired off an email to Jim, and
within an hour, he had come back to me.
We were all systems go!

Our observing site was to be Jims back garden. He lives in a rural location near to the
border between England and Wales, and has access to some fantastic dark
skies. In the stages of planning a joint
observing session together, we decided ideally that we would take into account
the phase of the moon, but in truth, I think that anything would suffice other
than near full moon conditions. As it happened
though, we struck lucky as we were only a day or so past new moon.

Part of the idea of a joint observing session was also a
chance to compare several scopes at the same time. I took my 150mm reflector, and Jim had his
120mm refractor and finally, the latest to his collection, the 14.5” JLT Dobsonian. There was sufficient room to set up all 3
scopes with plenty of room around them.
A wise idea, and a good technique of disaster aversion if you ask me. The last thing you would want would be to
hear the clatter of metal and glass come crashing down as one or both of us
stumbled into any of the apparatus.

So, I turned up at Jims house, and was about to be shown
around to the back yard by his wife when this red LED head torch come wandering
down the side of the driveway. Jim was
already set up with his refractor and on his way. I described the session as a joint observing
session with Jim. In truth, I didn’t see
Jim as such most of the night. I spent
my time talking to the red head torch, and it replied. I assume it was on Jims head and no-one else’s.

I had tried to compile a mental list of targets for the
evening, but having not observed from the site before, I wasn’t completely sure
what restrictions there were other than some trees to the North East. So, I decided to wing it.

To observations.
We first looked at some popular and easier objects with the intention of
comparing the scopes. This was to be the
first time that I have looked through a larger aperture reflector than mine,
and it was good to be able to do it side by side, on the same object, on the
same night. We picked out the Pleides
(M45) as the first target. It was rising
steadily from the horizon, and our vantage point at around 6.15pm was really
quite good. In comparison, the view
between the refractor and my reflector was similar I would say. Similar in contrast and the ability to
resolve the stars making the target up.
When viewed through the dob, we had hoped to make out some nebulosity,
but this wasn’t to be. Even with the
14.5” mirror. This might have been due
to it’s comparatively low position at the time of viewing. Nevertheless, there was an abundance of stars
in the view finder, many of which I couldn’t pick out with the 150mm.

From there, we went onto the Ring Nebula (M57) in
Lyra. At magnitude 8.8, it’s well within
the ability of both scopes, and a target I have visited often. We both found the target quite quickly, and
using averted vision I was just able to begin to make out the darker central
areas to the nebula that gives it the characteristic ring shape. Through the dob, we were able to view at a
higher magnification. The target wasn’t
particularly filling the eyepiece, but the greater light gathering power of the
dob meant that the ring was much more apparent.
I was also able to resolve the single star to the edge of the nebula,
often caught in photos. However, I
couldn’t see anything that could have been the star in the centre of the ring.

Whilst in the area of sky directly above us, we decided
to move onto the Dumbbell Nebula (M27).
This is an object that I have viewed from quite a few locations, and at
different phases of the moon. These were
undoubtedly the best conditions over the last year that I viewed it in. Through the 150mm I could see the nebula
quite clearly, but regardless of the magnifications and time at the EP, I
couldn’t be sure of verifying any structure.
However, Jim had found the target, and at a greater magnification, we
could both make out distinctive ‘bites’ take out of the circular shape of the
nebula which gives it the ‘Dumbbell’ name.
Another big tick to the dob!

Whilst searching in the sky charts for a next worthy target,
I noticed how damp things were getting.
Even more so when looking through the Telrad. Sadly, my home made Telrad dew shield wasn’t quite
doing its job. I can confirm that as
good a bit of kit as my Telrad is, it possesses a mysterious dew attractant
field around it. It might need a bit of a
re-design on that front.

So, to the next target in the constellation of
Sagitta. I last visited M71 back in July
in Summer conditions. It was the first
globular cluster of the evening, and at magnitude 6.1 it stood out very well
against the background of the autumnal sky through my 150mm reflector. Unfortunately, we didn’t look through neither
of the other scopes at this cluster. Jim
was trying to locate Uranus, drink hot chocolate and eat cookies at the
time. I can fully understand the effort
this was taking and was quite happy to show the target in my reflector before
then moving on to the next object.

M33, or Triangulum galaxy is a magnitude 5.7 spiral
galaxy and is reasonably large. The
interesting thing with comparing the view of this galaxy in each scope, was that
the extra aperture of the larger dob didn’t seem to bring out much more detail. Although later at a larger magnification
through the dob Jim may have started to make out some of the darker areas
between some of the spiral arms of the galaxy.

A short hop to Andromeda, and another batch of favourites
for many. Conditions were cooling down
rapidly, and frost was forming readily on most surfaces around us, but the
seeing conditions were excellent. This
give rise to the first of two ‘firsts’ for me.
I’d never appreciated the visibility of Andromeda to the naked eye. Generally, when I have viewed it in the past,
it’s been lower on the horizon and certainly to the naked eye, washed out. However the conditions on the clear moonless
night meant that we could see the galaxy quite clearly. Although, using the Telrad to get it lined up
in the scope was almost impossible because of the afore mentioned dew on the
glass. I persevered. I got there in the end. The view, as was expected, filled the EP of the
150mm and I could easily make out the nearby M110. However, I was always aware of the existence
of M32 in the locality but couldn’t identify it in the 150mm. Through the 14.5” dob though, it was resolved
with ease. Going back to the 150mm with
the image of from the dob in my mind, I was then also able to positively id the
location of M32 in amongst the rest of Andromeda. This positive id meant that I could confirm
the sighting and not assume that a small lighter smudge was the target as I
have had to do before. Another good tick
for the dob!

It was time to move on and when asked by Jim for a
suggestion to another target, I happened to be looking at the page on the sky
atlas that showed an object NGC 7662.
It’s an object that I hadn’t come across before, and was labelled as the
Blue Snowball Nebula in the constellation of Andromeda. I certainly knew I hadn’t observed this target
before, and Jim couldn’t recollect it.
Given that, we had no visual expectations of what the
target looked like, how big it was, or an idea of it’s magnitude, we decided to
go for it anyway. Locating using the
Telrad should have been very easy. I
spent quite a few minutes tracking down the area in the sky where it should
have been observable. I was using the
25mm EP. However, Jim was also scanning
the same area of sky unaided at first.
It might have been at this point his red dot finder sprung into
life. Nevertheless, he claimed the
success of the first observation.
Because of its altitude in the sky (being quite close to zenith), it was
time to break out the step ladder! Up
until now, it was necessary for me to stand tip toes on a small step. Jim being taller than me was able to observe
most targets comfortably. But, even Jim
had to resort to the stepladder for this one.
My first view through the dobs viewfinder was fantastic. A brilliant blue circular nebula pitched
against a very black background surrounded by several small stars. It's magnitude is 8.6 and the object itself is
quite small. This was the reason why I
had not picked it up initially. I had
observed the object, but only at low magnification. I changed to my 8mm EP and then picked it up
straight away. It’s a fantastic and
beautiful object and certainly for me, the target of the night. I would love to show this one off to someone
else in the future.

The evening was progressing, and as always, when you’re
enjoying yourself, time moves quickly.
It was almost time for me to leave, but we chose to squeeze in a couple
more targets for the night. We moved our
scopes around to the constellation of Auriga and quickly picked out M36 and M38. Both open clusters, with M38 being the
slightly dimmer of the two at magnitude 7.4.
Both these clusters were well populated, but with not much time left, we
had no time to properly compare the views through the various scopes. However, looking at Auriga in the sky atlas,
it certainly is an area of the sky that I want to spend an evening on.

We started to pack up by around 9.30pm rather
begrudgingly. The conditions remained
stable all evening, and there didn’t seem to be any deterioration in seeing. The forecast for the rest of the evening was
for fog to come in late at night and in the early hours which just made me want
to stay out to eek out the last of the good conditions, but it was time to go
home.

So, to summarise, aperture is important, as is focal
length. A larger scope in some ways does
help to see more. Comparison showed
though that it doesn’t always work like that, but more often than not, aperture
fever and telescope envy happens for good reason!

Our list of targets for the night give a mix of the
popular and first timers. It’s given me
some more ideas of areas to observe and work on in the future, but also
reaffirms my thoughts on the worth of revisiting traditional favourites. There’s always something new to see.